Here’s Why the CIA Is Worried About Geoengineering

The CIA is worried about the national security implications of climate change, and it’s also concerned about the potential implications of geoengineering — large-scale deliberate intervention in the Earth’s climate system.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has launched a study of geoengineering as a way to fight climate change, bringing together experts and getting the CIA involved as one of the study’s financers. For the purposes of the NAS study, geoengineering is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reflecting solar radiation away from the Earth to reduce global warming effects.

While this is great fodder for conspiracy theorists who can imagine geoengineering as a weapon of mass destruction, that is exactly one of the CIA’s concerns — so it’s not so far out there.

The mainstream media buzz is that the CIA wants to “control the weather” through geoengineering. But let’s put this into perspective. First of all, this is just a panel of experts intending to produce an in-depth study called “Geoengineering Climate: Technical Evaluation and Discussion of Impacts”. We’re not talking about massive, expensive labs churning out geoengineering tech that can be used by the CIA to reroute geopolitical dynamics. Certainly, nothing more than a study will be produced on the project’s $630,000 budget and within its 21-month timeframe.

There are precedents for government attempts to control the weather, as media is quick to point out, so it’s not exactly a new idea, but what we’re talking about is much bigger than manipulating the weather over Vietnam or ensuring that the Olympics in Beijing aren’t ruined by rain.

The CIA is partially funding the project, along with four other government agencies, including NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And the research isn’t classified, according to the NAS. “We’re doing an evaluation,” he said. “This is an assessment of what is known in the science literature about some of the proposed engineering techniques — both solar-radiation management and carbon-dioxide removal,” as reported by Fox News.